Have you ever heard of Pharrell’s side project, N.E.R.D.? You have? Crap. What about Zev Love X of KMD? Believe it or not, he became known as MF Doom, Viktor Vaughn, and King Geedorah! Oh, you already knew about those too? Damn, have to dig a little deeper.
Plenty of rappers have a crew, but not everyone has a side project. Wu-Tang Clan wasn’t a GZA side project, although if they’d flopped it probably would have been called that years later. Something about a “side project” suggests that you’re being asked to lower your expectations. It’s just an experiment, or it’s an attempt to give a little shine to the entourage. Or maybe we’re just straight up going the supergroup route—we all know how those work out.
It can be tough to pull these apart; was Murda Inc.—Jay, Ja, and DMX, a group that really recorded only one big record—a side project? Yes, but only because it never became a real one. At the other end of the spectrum, knowing about Louis Logic’s side project as the Odd Couple would require knowing who Louis Logic is in the first place (which you should, but that’s for another list).
But there are some side projects that we’re pretty confident fit the bill. Here are 10 Artist Side Projects You Never Knew About.